[quote="guardureyes" link=topic=1344.msg35859#msg35859 date=1261256520]



I actually ended up listening to the whole shiur. :-)

imtrying25 wrote on 19 Dec 2009 21:50:


The reality is that this is the BEST we can do. Our children WILL be exposed to the internet. We can either choose to be there to supervise their first "try" or we can choose to pretend it will never happen and find out too late.

Is it not strange that there is a stereotype (or maybe a reality) that the worst Jewish sexual predators/abusers are chasiddim? Chasiddim traditionally shelter their kids more than any other Jewish group.  You can lock it down as much as you'd like, unless they're educated that taking that first "slip" of using internet without a STRONG filter is akin to taking just one try at heroin, then they won't even know what hit them. Kids need to be educated that YOU NEVER click on a link you don't know about just like you never eat food without a reliable hechsher. AND YOU CHECK THE HECHSHER EVERY TIME, RIGHT? wrong. Kids will "check the hechsher" only with enough motivation to do so. You might be curious about heroin... but for most people not enough to actually try it. You're obviously more curious about arayot, and unless you REALLY know the consequences... you don't see it as a big deal. Besides the fact that the effect is nearly invisible for the first 15 years.

I'd love to come up with a proper solution. No solution we do come up with should be "final." We need to tweak it CONSTANTLY. But meanwhile, we need to do the best we can. Right now, the best we can is NOT being done. And that applies to us, not neccesarily our kids. Kids learn by example. If you get to watch tv, why don't they? If you get internet, why don't they? If you, by example, show your kids that you treat the internet as seriously as walking a tightrope, they'll know that it needs to be treated with caution. That means, high level filters, accountability reports, using the computer in a public room..... make it a big deal... make it a show. Post accountability reports on the fridge. Have your wife "grade" it and highlight suspicious places, then check them off as "passed."

A nuclear technician only goes in to the plant with safety gear. If he is exposed, he is "treated." Same with the internet. Make sure your kids get that feeling. Make it known when something popped out at you online WHEN IT WAS NOT YOUR FAULT that you had to get "treatment." That tshuva needed to be done. That you had to daven to Hashem that it never happens again. Show your agony over the occurrence. Your kids will tread VERY carefully if this is what you do.

May we all be zoche to achieve this.

A belated welcome. I just read most of this thread. I realize that you are faced with many more challenges than others here. I wish you much hatzlacha. Many have come from much farther.

A few comments on your first post.
1. Please think about getting rid of the TV. If your embarrassed to tell your friends look for other reasons to get rid of it. Steven Covey writes against having a TV as do many other success authors. There is a chapter in "To Kindle A Soul" with research that has compelling reasons to not watch TV.

2. The stuff about shaving, the mikva is the YETZER HARAH talking. Cut that stuff out. You are trying to stay clean not to be holy. You are not a nidda, you are an addict. Do what recovering addicts do not what niddas do.

3. Don't beat up on yourself. Respect yourself. Start a notebook where you write your qualities and 5 good things you did today. When you realize a quality or someone complements you right it down. Every day write down five good thind you did. They could be simple things like davening well, saying 'hello" to a neighbor, calling your Grandmother. Review  the notebook often.

Good luck and keep on posting

Thanks for the welcome holy yid :-)

I actually do not have a TV. Its all downloaded from the internet. Or I get a copy from friends. As I hear a Rav say, our battle these days is not a TV in the home. Nobody has that. Its the internet.

And another thing, I actually have very high self esteem (against all odds). I know I'm very capable, and I know I do a lot. Its when I get "stuck" with a project that I don't like, I procrastinate, then watch a movie... then.... not so good things. Thats why I say my worst enemy is wasting time.

You're right... the mikva thing is the Y"H talking.... but still its a good thing to do. It shouldn't hold me back... it should only strenghten me.

So I went to the mikva (finally!) on friday, erev shabbos chanuka, on rosh chodesh. A good day to go I think. Now i'm gonna do tikkun klali :-)

I hope that next time I go to the Mikva it will be as my "second coat of Mikva paint" where I've only built on this time :-)

Shavua Tov!

I thought I had good self esteem when I started here and I only had this issue. When I got this thing more under control I felt SOOO much better about myself. Even if you have good self esteem it will help you in this struggle to stay focused on you good parts. Also its great that your accomplished but are you accomplished spiritually? Are you developing yourself? How much chesed to you do? How is your Davening? I am not C'V coming to give mussar rather to point our areas of your life which if you put more of a focus on that will raise your self esteem.

Additionally the essence of self esteem is self awareness. The more you focus on your good side the greater you self esteem.

HI Become Holy,

I'm new here and missed most of the thread, but I read your beginning and your mention of the unexplainable stomach pain. I too have suffered from unexplainable symptoms of a similar nature and I have used a book by Dr John Sarno called "The Mindbody Prescription" and it has helped me tremendously. His theory is that a lot of this pain stems from your body throwing physical pain at you so that you get distracted from the more painful internal pain. Being that you battle with this problem, it would be fair to assume you have internal pain, just from that, and I'm not even talking about all the pain you might have from things that happened in your childhood.

This book helped my friend off of medication after four years of battling ulcerative colitis, and had helped me get better immediately whenever I have a flare up of my intestinal pains.

PLEASE READ IT!!!

All the best,
Haba

Holy Yid wrote on 20 Dec 2009 04:50:


I learn 1/2 hour to an hour daily with a chavrusa - messilas yesharim. I don't do as much chesed as I'd like, but I do help people in my area of expertise (technology). My davening could be better. My biggest problem is missing shachris. When I'm in pain, exhausted... its kinda hard going to shachris...  but yes... I take it day by day. I try not to dwell on yesterday. But I hope you're right... If i consider it good now... i should have a wondrous amazing thing to look forward to. :-)

habaletaher wrote on 20 Dec 2009 07:51:


Read it about 10 years ago. Did nothing for me. My friend had terrible migraines disappear. So I know it works. Just it seems to not be working on me.

BecomeHoly wrote on 20 Dec 2009 04:25:

The torah is equally applicable to every jew, at every time, regardless of what they just did or didn't do. Going to the mikva is a great thing, but if it causes you to have these thoughts of "I will keep certain parts of the torah after I go", I think any Rav or Talmid Chacham would very strongly advise you to cut it out entirely.
The mikva is not even in the same categorie as any mitzvah, it's just a hiddur. It's like the Italian molding on a building. Very beautiful, but won't keep the building from falling down. So if it causes you to neglect the bricks - it's not worth it.
Here too, I'm talking from lots of experience.
I'm gonna keep telling you what I learned from my own mistakes, so you don't have to go through what I did, and waste as much time as I did, in order to realize the truth.

I don't even know if this is in the book (I never finished the book because each time I started my symptoms disappeared in a few days, and I just let the book go) but did you try doing the meditations/verbalizations? My friend who was on medications for years and they didn't even work, did all that and got better and he taught me a few of them that I used last time I have a sever flare up and it worked!

Kollel Guy wrote on 20 Dec 2009 08:45:


Its more like - Y"H says to me.... well you didn't do mikva yet... so its ok..... You'll be a good jew tommorrow after you go to the mikva. I should really be telling the Y"H tommorow... but no... its not "I will keep..." thats ludicrous.

But what does happen, is after I go the mikva, I feel even worse if I fall - in other words, its another incentive to stay clean - "How could you do that... but you're a holy Jew... You're all mikva'd and everthing." Also... mikvah costs $ so these are all "incentives"

The Y"H makes me lazy to go, knowing its a good thing for me. It makes me put up all kinds of reasons why I "can't go yet" because I didn't have time to shave or whatever...

I appreciate all the input (you're like the devils advocate :-) ) but, as you mentioned, your issues was strictly visual... no mb. So when you mention that you've been there and therefore I should just trust you.... My Y"H says.... don't trust him.... you shouldn't have told me that :-/

habaletaher wrote on 20 Dec 2009 08:48:


Ok... I have back, neck, shoulder, and knee pain. Its goes in waves of bad to fine and up and down...  I think it has to do w/ a combination of poor sleep and poor nutrition (related to stomach...) and I have like super tiny scoliosis which I basically need to jsut excercise and it will be better (if only I had the wherewithal to actually get my act together and exercise. )

The stomach pain feels like I actually have something stuck in there. Going to the bathroom help the pain. Massaging it helps the pain. But theres nothing there (or so the doctors say). This is in addition to generally upset stomach, frequent urination, and I think I have some kinda cyst on my testicle (again, dr's say its all fine) which hurts.

I don't think this stuff will work on me, because other possibilities haven't been eliminated. I need to get into a good sleeping schedule, excercise/ do physical therapy, do a proper food sensitivity discovery diet.... basically a few months worth of work (which btw, unless you have someone directing you step by step, its basically a full time job to do these thing) to figure out whats going on...

Hi Become HOly,

Maybe it's presumptuous of me to weigh in over here, but there is a great gemara about how Shaul was sticking up for the rights of Amaleki children, saying why do they deserve to die etc.. and Ha-shem says to him, Don't be too big of a tzaddik (Mishle, somewhere), then when he gives the order to kill Nov Ir Hacohanim, Ha-shem says, Don't be too big of a rasha. The message is that sometimes the way the Y"h gets us is by encouraging us to follow a moral code/code of conduct higher than we are supposed to, then we can't hold onto it, and we fall from being too big of tzaddik to too big of a rasha. That might be what the YH is doing here with the whole mikvah thing... but then again it might not. I think the best thing is for you to sit down for a few minutes when you're in a good headspace, and really try to figure out, "will me going to the mikvah cause a net increase in slip ups or a net decrease?" Lev yodea maras nafsho, you should be able to figure it out if you really sit down and concentrate on it...

Hatzlacha!
Haba

And that sure is a challenging medical matzav, may Ha-shem bless you with a refuah shleima!

BecomeHoly wrote on 20 Dec 2009 08:57:

What I failed to explain, was that I stopped MB only after I got married, but before - I was actually pretty stuck in it.
Nevertheless, I even when mb was out of the question, I still had this unexplainable pull towards p**n. This showed me that it was not just taivoh and lack of seriousness, but a more serious problem.
Why would I get so much out of looking? Without anything out of it? And for literally HOURS at a time? How could I be so tired, that when I would try my hardest to have a conversation with someone - I just couldn't and would doze off, but 5 mins later, be up for 5 hours till shachris - without even remembering I was ever tired?
Sorry for not being clear.